Presentation

A successful presentation is based on a carefully written PPD.The PPD is sent to the IBO who will use it to decide on the grade for your presentation.

The Basics

You can present alone or with one or two other students in your class.

Each person should speak for a maximum of 10 minutes.

If you collaborate, everyone gets the same mark.

The mark awarded is based on the Presentation Planning Document(PPD) as well as the presentation.

The Presentation Planning Document PPD

The PPD is a planning document, it is not your full presentation. Therefore, the candidate section will not include everything you will say in the delivery of your presentation.

What you will include in the PPD are the concepts, ideas and connections you will be developing when you deliver your presentation.

It is not enough that you understand what you are planning on doing. It is important that your teacher and the examiner understand your plan too.

What you write must be clear to you and to them.

The Real-Life Situation RLS

The real-life situation may be one of local or global interest. Thus it may arise from your personal, school or community experience, or from national or world concerns. Choose a RLS that is clearly identifiable as a real situation.

The real-life situation must be real, not hypothetical. Do not invent. You are asked for one real-life situation. Do not describe more than one.

Other related real-life situations may be included in the outline section, not here.

Central Knowledge Question KQ

You must state a knowledge question. Make sure that you formulate it in the form of a question.• Check that the knowledge question is a) about knowledge b) an open question c) general.

To check that a) your KQ is about knowledge, try to reformulate it so that the word ‘knowledge’ or a version of ‘to know’ appears in it explicitly. Check that the target of the question is knowledge not a real-life situation.

KQ Open and General

To check that your KQ is an open question, see if it can have different answers. If it can have one definitive or correct answer, then it is not an open question.

To check that your KQ is general, make sure that it does not refer to a specific example or your real-life situation.

Remember that your TOK analysis, what you do in your presentation, will depend on the knowledge question.

Questions within disciplines are not knowledge questions. This rules out questions such as ‘Is X ethical?’ or ‘Is group therapy better than individual therapy?’

Questions about how scientific knowledge is produced or how knowledge in mathematics is produced are good knowledge questions.

You are required to state your ‘central knowledge question’ in the singular. That means one knowledge question.

Include analysis of your main knowledge question and related knowledge questions as well as arguments and perspectives. The outline must include the main points in the arguments you will present to answer your knowledge question.

The main points are the ideas and concepts you are discussing.

To explain the main points other supporting or related real-life situations and knowledge questions may arise.

Listing or mentioning ways of knowing and areas of knowledge, or the knowledge framework, will not suffice. You need to give an outline of your ideas.

The outline must contain actual content. Just writing what you will do in each step is of little use. For instance, “I will present my knowledge question” or “I will explain the connection with the RLS” are not actual content. They say nothing about the ideas, concepts and arguments which you will be developing in your presentation.

Responses can be presented in continuous prose or as a list of points. Avoid using cryptic abbreviations.

Conclusion

Show the significance of your conclusions with particular reference to your real-life situation and indicate how those conclusions might be relevant to other real-life situations

Make sure that you actually state what your conclusions are, even in the form of bullet points.

Ensure that your conclusions are about knowledge and not conclusions within a discipline or about the specific real-life situation. For example, a conclusion stating that ‘experimenting with animals is wrong’, is not a conclusion about knowledge and it is not a conclusion that can be generally applied to other real-life situations.

Your conclusions should focus on how the analysis of your knowledge question has helped you gain a better understanding of your real-life situation and other related real-life situations.